Ordinary Day
by katimonius REX
Summary: He said take my hand, live while you can. Don't you see your dreams lie right in the palm of your hand? One-shot. IT'S SO FLUFFY.


_Just a day, just an ordinary day.__  
__Just trying to get by.__  
__Just a boy, just an ordinary boy.__  
__But he was looking to the sky._

"Is that..."

Lily was, to say the very least, confused. After a pleasant visit to the lake, she had anticipated an equally uneventful walk back to the school, and eventually the girl's dormitory. She hadn't planned on seeing James Potter on her return journey. She certainly hadn't expected to see him doing...whatever it was that he was doing. And what it appeared he was doing seemed…out of character, to say the least.

It was very obviously James she saw across the courtyard; there was no mistaking the mess of black hair, or the rectangular, wire rimmed glasses that glinted brightly. His body, tall and lean from his years of playing Quidditch, demanded the attention of a small cluster of sixth years. They were rather large, with mean faces and atrocious postures that hid the more terrifying aspects of their physique. This wasn't what had Lily scratching her head. In fact, she wasn't even remotely surprised; despite the fact that James was without his little 'gang', the idea of him picking a fight with someone bigger and tougher than he was was hardly a new concept. No, it was the little boy behind him, sitting on the ground against a white dogwood tree, that threw her.

It was mostly out of curiosity, then, that she snuck around behind his back, trying her hardest to evade his attention, and approached the younger boy. He was clearly terrified; his eyes shifted uneasily between James and the larger boys, and she noticed the way his body shook slightly when she placed her hand on his shoulder. He had seen her sneak over, of course, but had almost immediately turned back to the battle brewing in front of him. Lily tilted her head in confusion, wishing she knew the story behind the situation.

_And as he asked if I would come along,__  
__I started to realize__  
__That every day he finds just what he's__  
__looking for, like a shooting star he shines._

A cry made her attention snap immediately in James' direction, and her mouth dropped of its own accord. Beyond his shoulder she could see a boy in a tree, hanging desperately onto a set of branches that were going to definitely buckle under his weight. Another boy, slightly closer, was hanging upside down by the ankle in mid-air, the effect of a spell that Lily had seen too often. A third boy was on the ground, crying out and scratching wildly at boils growing rapidly on his face. Lily couldn't see most of the fourth boy, but she could see a bit of his bulk; he was on the ground in front of James, who was leaning over him. Seconds later, to Lily's infinite surprise, James' arm swung back and then plowed forward, hitting the boy squarely in the nose and forcing him to keel over sideways onto the grass.

The whole thing made Lily rub her eyes, for obvious reasons, but she didn't have much time to mull it over. Because once the final sixth year had fallen over onto the ground, James made to head back in her direction. Having planned on turning around and seeing the younger student alone, James had every right to be surprised to see Lily kneeling alongside him, looking confused and concerned.

"What was that all about?"

The words slipped out before she could stop them, and James didn't respond immediately. He was slightly stunned by her presence, (and her beauty, although he couldn't well say that) and didn't answer her when he did eventually speak.

"Come'ere, Kev."

He took the boy by the shoulder and led him a few feet away, just to a point that Lily couldn't hear, and leaned down to talk to him. Naturally, Lily's first reaction was irritation; why couldn't he say what he wanted to say in front of her? Although she couldn't hear what he was saying, she could make out the tone of his voice, and it took her aback; calm and reassuring. She couldn't help the way her face softened when Kevin laughed and turned to leave, or the smile that crept up on her when James patted him on the back and watched him run off. The sixth years had already taken off in another direction, but James did another once over of the area to make sure they were well and truly gone before he turned his attention back to Lily.

She felt sick knowing how quickly her heart hammered when he looked at her, his hazel eyes meeting hers; it made her flush as she stood back up and straightened her skirt, trying to appear as nonchalant as possible. It was a well known fact that she didn't like James Potter. She had turned him down time and time again, for years, denying him the one thing he wanted more than anything else: her. She turned the other cheek, burned him in public, and even went as far as avoiding him…for a while. And finally, after six years, it had worked. The year she and James became head boy and girl he cooled off, choosing to put his big head to better use. Considering how often she had complained in the past, it was naturally assumed that Lily would be thrilled. But in that moment, her face and her fluttering heart suggested quite the opposite.

He smiled slightly, walking towards her with an easy grace that made her want to push him over, and stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Sorry about that," As an apparent afterthought, he pulled one of his hands quickly out of its pocket to push carelessly through his hair, as was his habit, but she couldn't help but note the way he caught himself and brought it back down. "They were throwing the kid around. Roughing him up. Four Slytherin sixth years against one Hufflepuff first isn't a very fair match-up."

Lily leaned against the tree and crossed her arms over her chest, switching to Head Girl mode in an instant. "So why did you have to hurt them? You're Head Boy, James. You can't pull that kind of thing; it could get you removed from your position."

James looked slightly apologetic, but otherwise unaffected. "I didn't _want_ to hurt them, obviously. I tried to tell them to stop, but they wouldn't. So I wrote them detention slips for two weeks. They still wouldn't quit. I wrote them some more slips and tried to send them down to Sluggy, but they wouldn't budge. So when they started throwing the kid back and forth between the four of them I stepped in."

"After all," He shot her his most charming smile, "I didn't want him having to roam the halls with Nikki." His affectionate name for the ghost of Gryffindor almost made Lily laugh, though she hid her amusement as well as she could; she wasn't all that eager to agree with him. Not that he cared very much. He turned and took a few steps, then stopped as if to deliberate something, and swung his head back. His grin took her breath away.

"Walk with me."

_He said take my hand,__  
__Live while you can.__  
__Don't you see your dreams__  
__lie right in the palm of your hand?_

He started walking slightly ahead, but Lily didn't even start to move. She wasn't sure that she even _wanted_ to walk with him. She watched his back, and only made a motion to move when he turned around for a second time and cocked an eyebrow at her. After another brief moment of internal argument she gave up and scurried up to join him, all too aware of their closeness and her own shaking fingers. They did nothing but walk for several minutes, enjoying the warm spring breeze and the chirping of the birds. But the farther they went, the more nervous Lily became. Eventually it became apparent that she needed a moment to collect herself, which she took mentally. 'It's only Potter.' She warned, frowning without realizing. 'You hate him. You're nothing but a challenge to him.'

When she felt slightly better about herself she cleared her throat and looked straight ahead with her head held high. That was, of course, until she noticed that his gaze was on the profile of her face, and not the scenery. A bright blush rose on her cheeks, and with obvious deliberation she turned her attention to her scenic right side and asked quietly, "Well, what did you want? You asked me to walk, and now we're walking. Not much else getting accomplished, now is there?"

He lifted his gaze off of her almost at once, and she saw out of the corner of her eye as he pulled a hand out of his pocket to loosen his tie. "I just wanted to walk is all. Maybe talk. Nothing wrong with talking, right?"

She muttered a short "I suppose not…" under her breath, and tilted her head down to look at the ground. It was then that she realized there wasn't another pair of feet walking next to her own, a fact that forced her to stop in her tracks and turn around. James had rooted himself several feet back, and was staring at the astounded redhead with a pained expression and eyes so sad that it made her heart break.

_And as he spoke, he spoke ordinary__  
__words, although they did not feel.__  
__For I felt what I had not felt before,__  
__and you'd swear those words could heal._

"Lily..." He took a step forward and hesitated, as though unsure of what he wanted to say. Lily gave an awkward little cough, but simply couldn't bring herself to avert his eyes. Not this time. So instead she stared up into them and asked nervously, "Uh, yes? James?"

He looked around for a moment and finally brought a hand nervously through his hair. "Lily, I...I just….what can I do? I don't...I don't know what you want." He took two steps forward, and she instinctively took two steps back, her face bright red. "I think I've done everything I can to try and convince you that I'm serious, and you just turn the other cheek."

James' pleading confession couldn't have been more unexpected if he had jumped out from behind a tree first with party favors. Lily didn't like it. After all, she had a very obvious distaste towards surprises. But just this once, it wasn't about Lily; or so he thought. It was about getting the pain of knowing she didn't care about him off of his chest. It was maybe even about moving on. But most importantly of all, it was a moment of clarity – and not for James.

"I mean, everyone thinks I'm nuts. Remus tried to tell me that I try too hard. Do you believe that? Because how can I try too hard, and at the same time not be trying hard enough? It doesn't make sense." He began to pace, and used his hands as expressively as he could. As though getting all of this off of his chest would require more than just words. "They all think I'm just being a dick, too. That's really prime, isn't it? They all just assume that I'm trying to get into your pants and then run off." He stopped for a second and looked at her sincerely. "I hope you know that's not the truth, Lily. It's not the truth at all."

Lily opened her mouth to say something; she wasn't entirely sure she believed that, truth be told. She was the prize. The one that got away. She was James' forbidden fruit, and surely the more she snubbed him, the more he wanted her. Or at least, that was what she had thought. But looking in his eyes and seeing the desperation there, she couldn't help but feel like he was being sincere. So when he continued on ranting, she didn't bother to interrupt him. She just closed her mouth and listened.

"I mean, I had hoped you would have figured it out by now. How serious I am about this, I mean. No one else gets it – not Sirius. Not Remus, not Peter. No one. I was kind of hoping that you, of all people, would be able to see it since…well, since it _is_ about you."

A flicker of confusion crossed her face, and she took a tentative step toward him. A feeling she couldn't name welled up in the pit of her stomach as she asked the question she wasn't sure she wanted an answer to: "What's about me, James?"

A sad sort of smile rose at the edges of his lips as he reached up to grab the lowest branch of a tree and held it fast, his body slowly twisting away from her. "I mean…everything."

_And as I look up into those eyes,__  
__his vision borrows mine.__  
__And I know he's no stranger,__  
__for I feel I've held him for all of time._

That one word hit her like nothing else could have. That one word that told her, 'I am the center of this boy's world.' That one word that told her that she didn't deserve to be. The next moment became critically important for Lily, because several things seemed to happen on the inside of her head.

"James…I'm sorry. So, so sorry." His expression was still pained as he pushed his eyes up to the sky "It's okay, Lily. I understand."

She smiled and shook her head. "No. What I meant was I'm sorry I didn't see it." She let out a shaky breath at the same time that his head snapped to attention, staring almost immediately into her emerald eyes. He scanned her features for a hint of what she was trying to say, but there was no point in looking. The words were tumbling out of her mouth faster than she could stop them; and she had no intention of cutting them off. She let them come.

"I think I've known for a long time how you actually felt about me. That you've…liked me more than I originally thought, I mean. I don't think that I wanted to see it." A nervous laugh bubbled from behind her lips as he let go of the tree branch and turned to fully face her. "You're not exactly the type of guy I wanted to be with, you know? You're...rude, and conceited, and cocky and wild, and you break rules and I…I'm just not like that. You aren't what I told my mom I wanted in a guy. I wanted Prince Charming. And you…you were just about as far as I could get."

While she talked she had turned her eyes away from him, afraid that if she looked at him she would get tongue tied. After all, she was practically speaking nonsense; at least, it felt like nonsense. Or maybe, she thought with a smile that sprung to life and faltered almost as quickly, that's love. Absolute, bloody nonsense.

"But you grew on me, and now…I can't get you out of my head. Because when I'm with you, I'm thinking of witty quips and comebacks and insults. And when I'm not with you, I'm still thinking of how I can be clever for the next time I see you. And the next time I see you, I almost instantly forget all of the wonderful lines I thought of to use against you. And when I'm not thinking of what to say to you the next time I see you, I'm thinking of when the next time I'm going to see you will be. It's all a very complicated cycle that goes on inside of my head, you know."

She lifted her eyes to meet his and smiled. Disbelief - was the only word that could describe the look that had overtaken James Potter's face. Lily wouldn't have been very surprised if he fell backwards in a dead faint. "So as you can see, Mr. Potter," She said, "I am just one, big, hopeless mess." All she was really getting was an uncomfortable, stunned stare as she waited anxiously for an actual reaction, shifting nervously on the spot.

It was about a full minute of awkward silence before his face broke out in pure joy, his reckless laugh echoing out across the grounds. He picked her up under her arms and began wildly twirling her around, grinning like a fool as she screamed and threw her arms around his neck, clutching onto him for dear life. "James, put me down!" She squealed, also wrapping her legs around his waist to give her a better hold. He laughed again but didn't oblige her, only stopping his wild spinning to make sure she didn't get sick.

She shook her head, as if to shake off the dizziness that was making the world tilt and sway around her. James smiled softly, though his eyes revealed the full extent of his joy, and pushed a piece of stray hair gently behind her ear; she shivered noticeably at the contact. For several long seconds they did nothing but stare into each others eyes and smile, looking as though they had never seen each other before. It was James who broke eye contact first with a low chuckle, ever impatient, and leaned down to kiss her passionately on the lips.

Lily gasped in surprise but closed her eyes naturally, leaning into the kiss without inhibition. When her dizziness returned at full force a fraction of a second later, she knew at once it wasn't from spinning.

_Please come with me,__  
__see what I see.__  
__Touch the stars for time will not flee.__  
__Time will not flee.__  
__Can you see?_


End file.
